Monday, March 3, 2008

Jewelry: Evolution or Intelligent Design?

Jewelry design ideas are a funny thing. Sometimes they develop from sitting with materials and playing with them until they gradually start taking shape. Sometimes they come to me basically fully formed; concept, materials, color, etc. All at once in a flash. It could be from something I've heard or seen or just out of the blue. Most of the time, these ideas still need to be futzed with to make them work both aesthetically and practically. Recently, I've been working on one of those 'out of the blue' ideas and thought I'd (semi)document the process. This is a necklace I'm currently calling Cascade.

Here is the cut sheet sterling. It's been polished a bit. The holes for the jump rings have been measured, marked and drilled. As part of this concept is about movement, I felt that a bit of an arc in the sheet would work well here. In the photo on the right, I've cut a bunch of jumprings and I'm cleaning them up, making sure the edges meet well and they have a good, round circlosity. The jumprings are then placed in the holes and I cut the lengths of chain. The original chain I picked for this necklace didn't work for me, so I went with this great rectangular cable chain. The shape of the links reflects and echoes the larger rectangular piece. My compositional eye tends to like echoing shapes. Below you see the jumprings in place and the chain strung in them. On the right, the whole piece has been fluxed and is ready for me to solder the tiny rings. Behind the piece on the solder block you can see the leeeettle pieces of cut solder.

So, I'm not quite done with Cascade yet. Here at Curly Girl Glass, we reserve the right to change any jewelry piece we are working on right up to the time it is photographed, so there is still time for me to change several design elements! Check back soon to see the finished piece shown off. Same bat time, same bat station.